Columbus, Houdini and Tyra Banks

Perception is Reality.  If people perceive reality with a particular slant, barring weighty evidence to the contrary, that which is generally accepted is the truth; that which is generally accepted is Reality.

Before 1492, before Columbus, whom we celebrated this week, crossed the ocean blue the earth was flat. Ask any one walking around in 1491, whether peasant or noble, illiterate or scholar, including the greatest power of the time, the Catholic Church, and they would have told you in no uncertain terms that the earth was flat.

Of course there was dissenting opinion. There were people who felt differently. There were people who had scientific data to substantiate this was not the case, through their study of Astronomy, but those people were heretics, persecuted, isolated and ostracized for creating divisions in society. These were dangerous people.

Columbus had to tread carefully as he became the head salesman of this alternative vision. If he had not gone to Isabella directly, herself the spearhead of the Inquisition, he might have been burned as a heretic and history would have gone a different path entirely.  But he went to the head of state with an interesting pitch, "The world is round and I can prove it. If I'm wrong I'm dead, but if I'm right, Spain will have a direct path to India. You'll be richer than any other monarch on Earth." And as legend has it, he had the clever device of his egg to explain it. He simplified his message with an image.

Why did Isabel, a hardened Catholic who merrily allowed her people to be tortured and roasted everyday for disagreeing with the principles of the church, accept this challenge?As the steward of the Church Isabel should have had Columbus executed immediately. But he had told her great wealth was attainable, and she opted to let her greed override her faith.

Isabel did not really believe for a minute he would succeed. In fact, she used his trip as an opportunity to rid her kingdom of other annoying trouble makers and sent Columbus to sail with the most hardened murderers, rapists and thieves she could find in her prisons. She took the opportunity to kill all her problematic birds with one shot.

Isabel must have been very pleasantly surprised indeed when Columbus returned from his newly discovered West Indies with tobacco, spices, gold and Natives.  But it must also have created quite a controversy in her mind.  The church had been wrong about something. Her view of the world was permanently shattered.  She was not alone.

When I consider why the Inquisition took such a hardened stance in the Americas, why it lasted for such a very long time at the cost of so many lives, I think that their very existence was at the heart of it.  By merely existing, by being there to disprove the core beliefs of the flat earth, they had offended the church.  A massive campaign was enacted to tear down their views, their beliefs, their social realities and rebuild a new one to the convenience of the invaders.

No where was the importance of images in accomplishing a change in perception of the natives more compelling than when Cortez happened to earn his place to Moctezuma's inner circle by appearing to resemble the emissary of legend from the Aztec God Quetzalcoatl. Though much of this is legend, it illustrates a point on perception. The Aztecs rightfully perceived the Spaniards as enemies, but because of Cortez's accidental appearance, part of the legend is that the emissary of the God would be blond and fair skinned, he was allowed in by Moctezuma. The Aztecs had allowed their eyes to cloud their judgment, despite abundant evidence of danger, to the detriment of their society.

Today we widely accept that the earth is round. We have seen pictures that have served to convince us of this. But we are more vulnerable to perception than we have ever been. We are a global society linked and ruled by images. If we believe everything we see, disregarding our individual judgment, reasoning, learning, then we are globally weakened.

Our eyes are our Achilles heel.  Magicians are experts at manipulating this debility in our reasoning.  They make us see something that our reason would not otherwise accept, but we believe it because we have seen it.  We have trouble believing that what we saw was not what happened.  We readily accept a reality manipulated by the magician as truth.

Since our eyes are now under constant stimulation, viewing more images of more things and reading more texts than humanity has ever had the access to, our brains are absorbing record breaking data and accepting it as valid. What we forget is that these artifices have an agenda.  An agenda that serves industry not the individual.

Reality, the world beyond the screens, is relatively agenda neutral. If we go to the woods and sit for a year, we would know and believe it was summer because we would see summer around us, likewise autumn would come and be autumn on its own, and we would recognize its arrival through the changes in nature.  The seasons wouldn't time themselves by anything other than natural conditions, and each season would come in only promote and facilitate the cycles of life and nature, not the cycles of the market. 

In our market-driven, media-shaped reality, winter, spring, summer, and fall, have specific time-lines that are based on the needs of marketers to push products and services. And we accept them as true even if nature says otherwise.  It may still be freezing outside our window and our walk-ways still needing to be plowed in the morning, but if media tells us that Spring is coming and we need to head to the stores and start buying our spring and summer wardrobe, off we go!

That alone may be relatively harmless, but there are new methods in the media that are of deeper concern.   They are at the core of the hidden agendas.  It is no longer sufficient to say buy these shoes they are pretty.  We are told be the person who wants these shoes or you are nobody.  Ask Manolo Blanik about their sales with the hype over Sex and the City, if you doubt my word.  But most of the hidden agendas that horrify me are not embedded in the creative programing or in the advertising itself but in what is cynically termed Reality Television.  The concept of Reality TV seems like an inherently contradictory statement to me.  Life happens on Earth not on Screen. 

I don't think that even the creators and producers of Reality TV expect it to be generally accepted as 'real.'  They are more the modern equivalent of freak shows in an old fashioned Circus. We rush to watch them for the very same reason that our grandparents (or great grandparents) liked to go to see the bearded woman.  We can look at these extreme parodies of humanity, cringe, laugh, weep, but regardless find our lives, however drained of meaning they may have become better for not being that bad.

This dynamic of familiar voyeurism breaks down to an even lower level with the emergence of the Reality Contest show.  These are fascinating and frightening social experiments.  There is the implication that being a winner is important above all else, that beating your fellow man through deception, derision, duplicity, whatever means possible, is an acceptable, legitimate form of behavior.   In order to win a prize that is often a questionable prize at best, and that invariably comes at a cost to dignity and integrity, people literally savage each other in a public forum.

I am constantly monitoring the images the media presents of women in society.  I watch America's Next Top Model with the morbid fascination of someone watching a train wreck.  In fact, because of my travels, I also watch Germany's Next Top Model, and Canada's Next Top Model occasionally.  As all concepts become global concepts so goes the global perception, and the same values are being sold to the great civilized nations around the world.

Tyra Banks encourages young women to be 'fierce.' This is her one-word encapsulation of an ideal woman.  “You gotta be fierce!” she says ad nauseam to some poor girl who is so emaciated that she is almost ready to pass out and so devoid of identity that she walked into the show willingly. 

The Merriam Webster On-line dictionary defines 'fierce' as follows:


“fierce" \ˈfirs\ (adjective)// fierc·er; fierc·est//
Etymology: Middle English fiers, from Anglo-French fer, fers, fiers, from Latin ferus wild, savage; akin to Greek thēr wild animal
Date: 14th century
1 a : violently hostile or aggressive in temperament b : given to fighting or killing :pugnacious 2 a : marked by unrestrained zeal or vehemence b : extremely vexatious, disappointing, or intense 3: furiously active or determined 4: wild or menacing in appearance.  synonyms: fierce, ferocious, barbarous, savage, cruel, mean, showing fury or malignity in looks or actions. fierce applies to humans and animals that inspire terror because of their wild and menacing aspect or fury in attack; fierce warriors. ferocious implies extreme fierceness and unrestrained violence and brutality ferocious dog. barbarous implies a ferocity or mercilessness regarded as unworthy of civilized people; barbarous treatment of prisoners. savage implies the absence of inhibitions restraining civilized people filled with rage, lust, or other violent passion, savage criminal. cruel implies indifference to suffering and even positive pleasure in inflicting it, cruel jokes of schoolboys;.

Cited from "fierce." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.
Merriam-Webster Online. 14 October 2009

By this definition, Tyra Banks is probably one of the most honest women on Reality TV.  That definition describes exactly what the contestants are encouraged to be and how they encouraged to behave.  They are berated, humiliated and hounded until they become fierce indeed. But it is the disingenuous benevolence with which she says it that makes my blood run cold. It is always possible that poor Tyra has not really read the definition of fierce in a dictionary.  Perhaps she has but she is deluded into thinking that she can re-define it.  But since the actions the show encourages, the values the show reinforces, are consistent with the traditional definition cited above from Merriam-Webster above, I am prone to think that in this case actions speak as loudly as words.

Do we want a generation of 'fierce' girls? Do we want a generation of fierce boys for that matter?  Does Tyra Banks want to be responsible for promoting these generations, for being the spokesperson for anarchy?

I have a different f-word for Tyra to consider and I present it here:


“free” \ˈfrē\ (adjective)//fre·er; fre·est//
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English frēo; akin to Old High German frī free, Welsh rhydd, Sanskrit priya own, dear
Date: before 12th century
1 a : having the legal and political rights of a citizen b : enjoying civil and political liberty  c : enjoying political independence or freedom from outside domination d : enjoying personal freedom : not subject to the control or domination of another
2 a : not determined by anything beyond its own nature or being : choosing or capable of choosing for itself b : determined by the choice of the actor or performer  c : made, done, or given voluntarily or spontaneously
3 a : relieved from or lacking something and especially something unpleasant or burdensome--often used in combination—often used in combination  b : not bound, confined, or detained by force
4 a : having no trade restrictions b : not subject to government regulation c of foreign exchange : not subject to restriction or official control 5 a : having no obligations (as to work) or commitments b : not taken up with commitments or obligations 6 : having a scope not restricted by qualification
7 a : not obstructed, restricted, or impeded  b : not being used or occupied c : not hampered or restricted in its normal operation 8 a : not fastened  b : not confined to a particular position or place c : capable of moving or turning in any direction d : performed without apparatus  e : done with artificial aids (as pitons) used only for protection against falling and not for support 9 a : not parsimonious  b : outspoken c : availing oneself of something without stint d : frank, open e : overly familiar or forward in action or attitude f : licentious 10 : not costing or charging anything 11 a (1) : not united with, attached to, combined with, or mixed with something else: separate  (2) : freestanding b : chemically uncombined  acids c : not permanently attached but able to move about d : capable of being used alone as a meaningful linguistic form  — compare to bound 12 a : not literal or exact  b : not restricted by or conforming to conventional forms 13 : favorable —used of a wind blowing from a direction more than six points from dead ahead 14 : not allowing slavery 15 : open to all comers


— free·ness \-nəs\ noun
— for free : without charge
synonyms free, independent, sovereign, autonomous mean not subject to the rule or control of another. free stresses the complete absence of external rule and the full right to make all of one's own decisions. independent implies a standing alone; applied to a state it implies lack of connection with any other having power to interfere with its citizens, laws, or policies. sovereign stresses the absence of a superior power and implies supremacy within a thing's own domain or sphere, and armed services. sovereign.  autonomous stresses independence in matters pertaining to self-government as autonomous


Cited "free." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.
-Webster Online. 14 October 2009


Of course, free does not work for the program. The girls that join the competition are anything but free.  They are the indentured serfs of the Producers of the show. They are housed as the producers please, dressed as the producers please, used as the producers please, and when the producers please they are cast out into the cold. They have entered a bubble where they will be examined and exploited, where money will be made off their experiences by everyone but them. The winner receives a prize that never will cover the cost to her identity, her independence, her character.

Watching America's Top Model I am reminded of Merle Travis:

'You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store...'

Change 'load' to 'play' and 'tons' to 'episodes' and the original lyrics fit quite well. Tyra and her colleagues may argue that competitors enter freely and can leave freely at any time.  But this is the same cynical argument used by the Mining Companies on the miners of the time, and has as much worth.

We speak of living in a free society, but the media increasingly sells us a different reality. A reality where we are not free, we are even beyond sold-out, we are entirely enslaved. We need to rise up and unite, we have nothing to loose but our chains of endless, mindless, exploitative 'Reality.'

There are serious threats occurring to our former cherished way of life.  And I mean former because we have forfeited it in large part and need to get it back. There are serious actions to be taken for women and men alike to live with dignity and freedom enriched by the experience of the reality of everyday life. Those are the paths to greatness.

It should be emphasized to young women that the following people would never have passed the requirements to enter the America's Top Model show, would never have walked the catwalk as instructed by a leading transvestite, would never have allowed a misoginistic photographer to pose them like a souless mannequin, and yet these women were not only great and powerful, respected and beloved, but they shaped the very core of our society.  They were different, sometimes bold, sometimes kind, sometimes they were even fierce, but they had full characters and agendas that were all their own and not merchandisable.

Here is my incomplete list of the Earth's Best Top Models

Cleopatra - Ancient Egypt
Elizabeth I - UK
Jane Austen - UK
Florence Nightingale - UK
Mary Seacole - UK & West Indies
Elizabeth Garrett - UK & France
Annie Bessant - UK
Marie Curie - Poland
Eleanor Roosevelt - US
Margaret Thatcher - UK
Julia Child - US
Betty Friedan - US
Gloria Marie Steinem - US

There are so many more, this is just a partial list, off the top of my head, of the women I have admired and respected in history; the women I have referred to for role models of different facets of life.  There are not enough programs dedicated any more to highlighting the efforts of these and thousands of other great women who have come before us and paved the way for us. 

There is a quote by Socrates that when women are liberated they surpass men. Perhaps that is why we are so exploited, so tied down, so held back.  Because if we were free and powerful we would have taken over the world and humanized it.  But this isn't being done to us, by 'others,' we do it to ourselves.  Women like Tyra Banks do it, and someone did it to her.  It is an endless chain of abuse and exploitation of women by women that form the links of the gold chains around our waists.

When I look at the role models of women to come, the women the media sells to us every day, the future generations of meat for the media canons, I don't want that Reality.  I don't want to live in a world full of fierce Tyra Banks wanna-be's.  I want to be free. I don't believe that I am alone, but I do believe that our message is getting lost in the din of the everyday images blasting from each media outlet.

We owe our soul to the company store, and at an interest rate that will be collected from our daughters and sons.

While Twittering this week, and tracking the reaction of Columbus day, I noted a general distaste for what was called the 'Imperialist Exploiters' of the Americas. Historic reality is that Columbus himself did not carry out the genocides, he was only the vehicle through which the murderers landed on our shores. But for a society that came out of that genocide to innovate the concept of Freedom and Independence, and who is still so verbal in despising the exploitations of any people, we are frighteningly eager to allow it to be done to us. We have taken a dizzying down-slide in values.

What we do today is tantamount to the victims of the Inquisition walking into a spectacle where they could convince Torquinada that they were the World's Top Heretic, in order to win a prize of top position on the pire.

It is a trick of divertion and manipulation of perception that Houdini would never have dreamt-up.

It is the same as Moctezuma saying to Cortez, "You've given me no reason to trust you and I don't like what your people stand for, but you look like the emisary of a God, come in and have a nice cup of chocolate," and it will have the same devastating results.